"I've had such a SATISFYING time to-day," said Varvara. "They can't take THAT from me. I really didn't mean to kill your old toad. And you've got your hair bobbed. You can thank me and God for that."
She danced off to the gate, ignoring Lady Clara but throwing an airy kiss to Grandmother. "Laugh, Marigold, laugh," she called imperiously from the car. "I like to leave people laughing."
Marigold managed the ghost of a laugh, after which Varvara deliberately turned a complete double somersault before everybody and hopped into the back seat. Lord Percy smiled at Mother. Mother was a very pretty woman.
"An incorrigible little demon," he said.
6
"I think," said Grandmother quite quietly when she had heard the whole tale, "that princesses are rather too strenuous playmates for you. Perhaps, after all, your imaginary Sylvia is really a better companion."
Marigold thought so too. She ran happily through the dreamy peace of the orchard to meet the twilight that was creeping out of the spruce-grove. Back to Sylvia, her comrade of star-shine and moon- mist, who did not pull hair and slap - or provoke pulling and slapping - Sylvia, who was waiting for her in the shadows beyond the Green Gate. She was very well satisfied with Sylvia again. It was just as Grandmother had said. Princesses were too - too - what was it? Too IT, anyhow.
She was glad she hadn't told her about Sylvia. She was glad she hadn't shown her the dear fat grey kittens in the apple-barn. Who knew but Varvara would have held them up by their tails? And though she felt sure she could never forget Princess Varvara - the tang of her - the magic of her mirth and storms - there was a queer, bitter little regret far down in her soul.
She had been used to pretend "Suppose a Princess dropped in to tea." And it HAD happened - and she hadn't known it. Besides Varvara wasn't a bit like a Princess. The way she had gobbled things down at supper. Marigold was the poorer for a lost illusion.
Meanwhile down in Cloud of Spruce Mother was putting away Marigold's golden braids and crying over them. Grandmother was girding an apron on with a stern countenance, to make another chocolate cake, late as it was. Salome was counting the hop-and- go-fetch-its and wondering how two children could ever have eaten so many in one afternoon. Marigold's appetite was never very extensive.
"I'll bet that princess will have stomach-ache to-night if she never had it before," she thought vindictively. And Lucifer and the Witch of Endor were talking over the general cussedness of things under the milk bench.
"Take it from me," Lucifer was saying, "princesses aren't what they used to be in the good old days."
CHAPTER XI
A Counsel of Perfection
1
There was really only one creature in the world whom Marigold hated - apart from Clementine, who couldn't be said to be in the world. And that creature was Gwendolen Vincent Lesley - in the family Bible and on the lips of Aunt Josephine. Everywhere else she was Gwennie, the daughter of "Uncle" Luther Lesley, who lived away down east at Rush Hill. She was a second cousin of Marigold's and Marigold had never seen her. Nevertheless she hated her, in her up-rising and her down-sitting, by night and by day, Sundays as well as week-days. And the cause of this hatred was Aunt Josephine.
Aunt Josephine, who was really a second cousin, was a tall severe lady with a pronounced chin and stabbing black eyes which Marigold always felt must see to her very bones - X-ray eyes, Uncle Klon called them. She lived in Charlottetown, when she was home - which wasn't often. Aunt Josephine was an old maid; not a bachelor girl or a single woman but a genuine dyed-in-the-wool old maid. Lazarre added that she "lived on" her relations; by which cannibalish statement he meant that Aunt Josephine was fonder of visiting round than of staying home. She was especially fond of Cloud of Spruce and came as often as she decently could, and every time she came she praised Gwendolen Vincent Lesley to the skies. But she never praised Marigold.
The very first time she had ever seen Marigold she had said, looking at her scrutinisingly,
"Well, you have your father's nose beyond any doubt."
Marigold had never known that her father's nose had been his worst point, but she knew Aunt Josephine was not being complimentary.
"Gwendolen Lesley has such a beautiful little nose," continued Aunt Josphine, who had just come from a visit to Luther's. "Purely Grecian. But THEN everything about HER is beautiful. I have never in all my life seen such a lovely child. And her disposition is as charming as her face. She is very clever, too, and led her class of twenty in school last term. She showed me the picture of an angel in her favourite book of Bible stories and said, 'That is my model, Aunty.'"
Who wouldn't hate Gwendolen after that? And that was only the beginning. All through that visit and every succeeding visit Aunt Josephine prated about the inexhaustible perfections of Gwendolen Vincent, in season and out of season.
Gwendolen, it appeared, was so conscientious that she wrote down every day all the time she had spent in idleness and prayed over it. She had never, it seemed, given any one a moment's worry since she was born. She had taken the honour diploma for Sabbath-school attendance - Aunt Josephine never said "Sunday" - every year since she had begun going.
"She is SUCH a spiritual child," said Aunt Josephine.
"Would she jump if you stuck a pin in her?" asked Marigold.
Grandmother frowned and Mother looked shocked - with a glint of unlawful, unLesleyan amusement behind the shock - and Aunt Josephine looked coldly at her.
"Gwendolen is NEVER pert," she rebuked.
It also transpired that Gwendolen always repeated hymns to herself before going to sleep. Marigold, who spent HER pre-sleep hours in an orgy of wonderful imagery adventures, felt miserably how far short she fell of Gwendolen Vincent. And Gwendolen always ate just what was put before her and NEVER ate too much.
"I never saw a child so free from greediness," said Aunt Josephine.
Marigold wondered uneasily if Aunt Josephine had noticed her taking that third tart.
And with all this Gwendolen, it appeared, was "sensible." Sensible! Marigold knew what that meant. Somebody who would use roses to make soup of if she could.
Gwendolen had never had her hair bobbed.
"And she has such wonderful, luxuriant, thick, long, shining, glossy curls," said Aunt Josephine, who would have added some more adjectives to the curls if she could have thought of them.
Grandmother, who did not approve of bobbed hair, looked scornfully at Marigold's sleek, cropped head. Marigold, who had never before known a pang of jealousy in regard to a living creature, was rent with its anguish now. Oh, how she hated this paragon of a Gwendolen Vincent Lesley - this angelic and spiritual being, who took honour diplomas and led her class but who yet - Marigold clutched avidly at the recollection of the note Gwennie had written her at Christmas - didn't appear to know that "sapphire" shouldn't be spelled "saffire."
Gwendolen Vincent was "tidy." She was brave - "not afraid of thunderstorms," said Aunt Josephine when Marigold cowered in Mother's lap during a terrible one. She always did EXACTLY what she was told - "See that, Marigold," said Grandmother. She never slammed doors - Marigold had just slammed one. She was a wonderful cook for her age. She was never late for meals - "See that, Marigold," said Mother. She never mislaid anything. She always cleaned her teeth after EVERY meal. She never used slang. She never interrupted. She never made grammatical errors. She had perfect teeth - Marigold's eye-teeth were just a wee bit too prominent. She was never tomboyish - Marigold had been swinging on a gate. She never was too curious about anything - Marigold had been asking questions. She always was early to bed and early to rise because she knew it was the way and the only way to be healthy and wealthy and wise.